


From Dusk Till Shawn

by burglebezzlement



Category: Psych
Genre: Alcohol, Churros, Costume Makeouts, Costumes, Fluff, Getting Together, Halloween, M/M, Miscellaneous Background Crime, Pining, References to Gus's canonical Harry Potter nerdery, Trick or Treat: Chocolate Box, Zombie Fun Run
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-21 14:48:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12460017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burglebezzlement/pseuds/burglebezzlement
Summary: Shawn and Gus have this thing. It’s not a big deal. It’s not something they need to talk about. It’s just that every time they get into costume for Halloween, they end up making out.





	From Dusk Till Shawn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hearteating](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearteating/gifts).



> For hearteating, who requested Shawn and Gus and prompted a costume party with accidental or “accidental” makeouts. I couldn’t decide which was more awesome, so I went with both. Happy Trick or Treat!

Halloween Break in Cabo is never going to be a thing, but it’s 1998, and Burton Guster doesn’t know that yet.

He’s with his friends from Blackapella, hanging out at the resort’s poolside costume party, and he's got the perfect costume, from this amazing new book series. The first book just came out in the US, so nobody recognizes who he is, but it’s still a great costume. Even though he has a headache from the fake nerd glasses, and three different girls have told him his roommates must have drawn on him the night before because of the lightning bolt scar he drew on his forehead.

Gus is optimistic. He’s had a frosty margarita. He’s feeling good.

He’s a few more margaritas in when a hot guy wearing a bullfighter’s cape and a Wookie mask asks him to dance. Maybe he’s not hot. The Wookie mask makes it tough to tell, but there’s something about him that Gus likes, something he can’t put his finger on. They end up grinding on the dance floor. The guy doesn’t talk, or when he does, it’s in an accent even drunk Gus can tell is totally fake. 

Gus is the one who leans in. The guy takes off his nerd glasses with gentle fingers, and Gus doesn’t even care when they get thrown across the room. Gus’s eyes are already closed when the guy takes off his mask, which is why they sloppy-make out for five minutes before they pull back and get their first good look at one another.

“Shawn?” Gus’s mouth falls open. “Shawn Spencer?”

“Gus?” 

Shawn looks paralyzed for a moment, and then the mask descends. Not the Wookie mask. Shawn’s too-cool-for-this mask, the one he uses when he feels threatened. When he’s about to rely on banter to keep his feelings hidden.

Gus can’t take it. He turns and leaves.

* * *

Gus graduates and starts working in pharmaceutical sales. Shawn keeps wandering the country, sending postcards when he thinks about it. Gus gets postcards from Montreal, Key West, Chicago — Shawn claims to be working as a carny, as a docent for the St. Louis Art Museum, as a swamp guide in Louisiana. Some of it might even be true. 

Shawn comes back to Santa Barbara, gets arrested, starts a psychic detective agency, and calls Gus. Gus wanted a change, but he’s a Guster, so he doesn’t quit his job. He joins Shawn and works part-time as a psychic detective’s associate (not assistant) instead. 

Neither of them talk about the kiss.

* * *

A few months later, one of their old friends from Camp Tikihama throws a Halloween party. Shawn and Gus are arguing about something stupid, which is why they end up going separately. 

Gus has to finish his sales route and get some finishing touches for his costume, which is why Shawn is already halfway to drunk when Gus arrives. Shawn’s hand-made Robocop costume is pretty good — amazing, really, when you consider how terrible his crafting skills used to be at camp.

They’re still arguing, so Gus gets a beer and goes to talk to some people he hasn’t seen in years. They probably haven’t heard about Pluto. 

He’s talking to someone about planetary stratification when Shawn sidles up next to him.

“Nice costume, cowboy.” Gus can smell the beer on Shawn’s breath. 

Gus turns. “Lord Bowler was not a cowboy,” he says. “Perhaps you don’t know this, but _cowboy_ was a term of opprobrium in the Old West. Lord Bowler was a bounty hunter, and the best tracker in the West. And a fellow brother who had to put up with an obnoxious sidekick.”

Shawn ignores him. “Why are you wearing Lassie’s cavalry pants?”

Gus shakes his head. “I’m not talking to you now, Shawn.”

“Come on.” Shawn looks behind Gus. The people Gus was talking to have wandered over to the cooler. “It’s just me and you, buddy.”

“Shawn….”

“Gus.” Shawn grabs Gus’s hand, and Gus’s stomach clenches. “Don’t be the squashed Laffy Taffy at the bottom of the bowl.” He pulls Gus in, looping one arm around Gus’s waist. Gus knows he shouldn’t, but goes along with it anyway. Even though they’re friends. Even though they’re fighting.

“Shawn,” he says, but Shawn’s lips are on his. His last vaguely coherent thought is whether Shawn chose Robocop because the mask would leave his lips free.

* * *

There’s a murder among the organizers of the 2K Zombie Fun Run, and Shawn and Gus go undercover as zombies. Zombies who run.

They catch the killer in the opening corral — Shawn spots it immediately when the murder weapon peeks out of a fanny pack the killer was trying to plant at bag check. He leads a group of zombies in a mass apprehension.

“Be a shame to waste those entry fees,” Shawn says, after Lassiter and Juliet have hauled the guy away.

Gus looks down the race track. “I bet we could catch some of those humans.”

Shawn grins. “Hell yeah.”

They come in at the back of the zombie hoard, and catch zero humans. 

Gus knows Shawn’s lying when he claims to be high on endorphins after the run and plants a kiss on Gus’s lips. But they are both dressed up like zombies. They totally could be other people.

Totally.

* * *

They still don’t talk about it. Not out loud. But there are other clues. 

Like the time Gus finds a copy of the Santa Barbara News-Press on his desk at the Psych office. He throws it away, and then the next day it’s back on his desk, folded to an ad for Chalupa Hut, with the words “Free Churros for anyone who comes in costume on Halloween” circled in red pen. 

Gus finishes his sales calls early on Halloween and changes into his werewolf costume in the back of the Blueberry.

When someone wearing vampire teeth, a mask, and an opera cape walks in, Gus stops arguing with the cashier about whether the ad indicates a limit on the number of churros per person in costume. Instead, he meets the vampire’s eyes.

It totally could be someone else, Gus tells himself. He totally didn’t know all along that he and Shawn were going to end up making out in a booth at the back of the Chalupa Hut.

* * *

Gus doesn’t know how Shawn found out about his cousin Tyler’s Halloween-themed birthday party.

He does know his Aunt Myrtle is never going to invite him back.

* * *

The owner of the Leaping Leopard agreed to give Shawn and Gus fifty bucks to take down the ring of organized audience members rigging costume competitions in the Santa Barbara area. Fifty bucks, plus free drinks.

The couple’s costume Shawn bought for them to go undercover in was $75. By Gus’s calculations, they have $25 worth of free drinks to consume before they break even. ($45, with the cab they’re going to have to call to get home.)

“Shouldn’t let you negotiate,” Gus slurs, through his rat snout. He keeps getting the fake fur in his margarita. “You — you have lost nego. Negosh. Negoshashun priv.” He knows there’s more to that word, but he’s lost it. Lost it like Shawn lost something. He’s not sure what.

“Aw, Gus.” Shawn’s leaning back against the bar, his pizza costume draped across his torso at an angle. “You’re the prettiest Pizza Rat here. And hey, good news! I know how they did it!” 

“What?”

“The costume contest thieves,” Shawn says. “You remember that dead body in the werewolf suit? The one they found down on the beach last week? I’m pretty sure we found our killers.”

“What?” Gus turns to look at Shawn. “Why are you so loud?” If there’s one thing he’s learned about finding murderers — and look, Gus has found a lot of murderers. If there’s one thing he’s learned, it’s that you don’t shout about it before Lassie and Jules get there.

“It’s cool.” Shawn points to the far end of the bar, and Gus squints. Maybe there is a Lassie-Jules over there. There’s definitely a werewolf in handcuffs. Gus is pretty sure he wouldn’t hallucinate that.

“So — the wolfies?”

“Yeah, man.” Shawn claps a hand on Gus’s back. “The wolfies. It’s cool. We should get you home.”

Gus pushes his drink away. Shawn’s hand slips onto his arm and Gus covers it with his own, pulls Shawn close, and then bonks him on the nose with the rat nose. 

“You — you deserved that.” Gus pulls the nose off and abandons it on the bar. Shawn’s shoulder is warm and strong and Gus uses it to pull him closer, kisses him like there’s no tomorrow, because tomorrow they won’t be Rat Gus and Pizza Shawn, and everything’s going to have to go back to normal.

* * *

Woody’s standing beside the punch bowl at the Santa Barbara PD’s Halloween party, squinting at Gus.

“Hey, Woody.” Gus pours himself a glass of punch and takes a long sniff with the super-sniffer. No alcohol.

“Great Griff costume,” Woody says. He gestures down to his lab coat. “I came dressed as someone who cuts up dead bodies! I figure, it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?”

“A Gryffindor?” Gus snorts. “Hardly.” He smooths one hand down his authentic Ravenclaw tie with its signature blue and gray diagonal stripes. “Too many Harry Potter fans have an unreasonable dedication to the so-called ‘main characters.’ Personally, I’ve chosen to interpret Rowling’s corpus with the creation of an original Ravenclaw. My character’s name is Rofundus Wormington, the half-blood child of a Muggle mother and a wizard father. I fought alongside Harry Potter with Dumbledore’s Army, and I have a rich backstory.”

“A raven?” Woody squints. “Wait! You’re not wearing a bird mask!” He shakes his head. “I’ve got to figure out what they’re putting in this stuff.”

Gus knows the moment Shawn arrives. He’s dressed like Vincent Price, with full makeup and an opera cape, but Gus still knows.

He always knows when Shawn walks into a room.

Shawn comes over to the punch bowl, and that’s when Gus realizes they’ve got no excuse. This is the first time he’s been in costume, with Shawn, at a Halloween party, and neither of them has an excuse. They’re not wearing masks. Neither of them are drunk. Nobody’s even been drugged by a group of extreme herbalists they’ve trying to uncover.

“Nice costume,” Gus says, to cover up the nervousness he’s feeling.

“Thanks.” Shawn takes a sip from the punch and stays where he is. “Yours is good too. Harry Potter. I like it.”

“It’s not Harry Potter, it’s —” Gus gives up.

“Gus?”

“Yeah?”

“It occurs to me that we are adults,” Shawn says. “We could be wearing these costumes and pretending not to know who we’re making out with in our own homes. Or office.”

Gus’s chest feels funny. Maybe hope feels like skipping a beat. “Or we could skip the costumes,” he says.

Shawn meets Gus’s eyes, and there it is. Definitely hope.

“You’d do that?” Shawn clears his throat. “You’d want that?”

“You’re my best friend,” Gus says. “You’re the best kisser I know.” (He knows he’s going to regret saying that. He says it anyway.)

“Yeah?” Shawn’s face is open. Vulnerable, under the makeup.

Gus doesn’t answer. Instead, he puts an arm around Shawn’s waist and pulls him closer, pausing to just breathe before he leans in and kisses him. Kisses his best friend, for real this time, without any excuses. Kisses him like it’s been a long time coming, because it has.

Shawn’s the one who finally pulls back. “I’ve been waiting for that,” he says.

Gus looks up. “Why is Hold Me Now playing again?”

“I may have bribed the DJ to play the Thompson Twins until the costumed hoard swarms the turntables to demand something else.”

“Shawn, the DJ is someone’s iPod.”

“Bribed, hacked their iTunes password to download a song they hate and then created a new party playlist with nothing but that song. It’s just semantics, Gus.”

“You haven’t heard it both ways, Shawn.” Gus leans in and kisses him again.


End file.
